Pakistani Taliban ready for Osama’s plan By Syed Saleem Shahzad ISLAMABAD – After a successful series of meetings in Washington last week, the United States and Pakistan have deepened their strategic relationship aimed at broad-based military cooperation for an American victory in Afghanistan. A dialogue process has also been set up with a handpicked team of the Hezb-e-Islami Afghanistan (HIA), the second-largest force in the Pashtun-dominated south of Afghanistan after the Taliban. United States President Barack Obama flew to Afghanistan at the weekend in a surprise visit to impress on President Hamid Karzai that effective political policy is needed to … Continue reading Pakistani Taliban and Al Qaeda!

Iran rediscovers value of Persian roots By Kaveh L Afrasiabi Over the weekend, Iran hosted the presidents of Iraq, Afghanistan, Tajikistan and Turkmenistan to celebrate Nowruz, the ancient Persian new year marking the first day of spring that is celebrated by some 300 million people around the world who together form an important cultural bloc. Both Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and President Mahmud Ahmadinejad used the occasion to emphasize the importance of Nowruz in fostering a global climate of peace and cooperation. In light of a recent United Nations General Assembly resolution marking March 21 as International Nowruz Day, … Continue reading Nowruz and Iranian Awakening?

Sonia goes from strength to strength By Neeta Lal NEW DELHI – The controversial passage through India’s Rajya Sabha (Upper House) of the Woman’s Reservation Bill, which seeks to reserve 33% of seats for women in the country’s legislatures, was something of a personal triumph for Sonia Gandhi, chairperson of the ruling United Progressive Alliance (UPA) and president of the Congress party. Sonia, who this month celebrates exactly 12 years at the helm of Congress, had staked her and her party’s reputation on the bill, which many of the UPA’s coalition partners bitterly opposed. The dissent was overcome and the … Continue reading Prime Minister Sonia Gandhi

IMF holds back cash to Pakistan By Syed Fazl-e-Haider KARACHI – The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has deferred for an indefinite period disbursement of the fifth, US$1.2 billion, installment of funds to be paid to Pakistan under their $11.3 billion standby agreement. This came after the government failed to meet the condition of tabling draft value-added tax (VAT) legislation in the four provincial assemblies. Critics say the proposed VAT will increase inflation, erode consumers’ purchasing power and dampen demand. The government has left the issue with legislators who will adopt, reject or amend the VAT bill. Local business communities have … Continue reading Pakistan and IMF!

Google: A Sino-US marker By Benjamin A Shobert Across the United States, conversations about politics have not been this charged since the final days of the last presidential campaign. In the space of a week the passage of landmark healthcare reform and Google’s exit from China have made for anxious and animated discussion. While these two issues are disconnected from one another, they do appear to represent for many Americans significant inflection points relative to historical expectations. On one hand, medical care was formally incorporated into the contract between citizens and the government and no longer was a privilege primarily … Continue reading Google China!

Allawi poised for a comeback By Sami Moubayed DAMASCUS – The streets of Baghdad were empty on Friday evening as the final results of the March 7 parliamentary elections were being announced. Elsewhere in Iraq, a terrorist attack in the suburbs of Diali province led to the killing of 45 people and the injuring of 65 – news that went by almost unnoticed when it was announced that Iyad Allawi’s Iraqi List (Iraqiya) had won the elections with 91 out of 325 seats in parliament. Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, who has headed Iraq since 2006, has effectively lost his job, … Continue reading PM Allawi of Iraq?

Karzai’s China-Iran dalliance riles Obama By M K Bhadrakumar Great moments in diplomatic timing are hard to distinguish when the practitioners are inscrutable entities. Afghan President Hamid Karzai’s visits to China and Iran within the week rang alarm bells in Washington which were heard in the Oval Office of the White House. Karzai’s two days of talks in Beijing last week were scheduled exactly at the same time as the high-profile strategic dialogue taking place between the United States and Pakistan in Washington. Karzai has coolly defied the President Barack Obama’s do-or-die diplomatic campaign to “isolate” Iran in the region … Continue reading Karzai games!

Blame-game over war ship’s sinking By Donald Kirk WASHINGTON – The explosion and sinking of a South Korean war ship in the West or Yellow Sea near the North Korean coast set off alarm bells in Washington and Seoul. The question was whether North Korea was again making good on threats to challenge South Korean control beneath the “northern limit line” (NLL) set by the United Nations Command three years after the Korean War ended in 1953. Now both South Korea and the US want to tamp down tensions, to find the evidence that explains away the explosion, which claimed … Continue reading South and North Korean War?

In four years, standby to greet Prime Minister Narendra Modi By Jawed Naqvi dawn.com Narendra Modi attends a First Convocation ceremony of Gujarat National Law University in Gandhinagar, near Ahmedabad, on March 28, 2010. – Photo by AFP. A big race, probably the biggest that India is mandated to hold, was kicked off last week. It could usher Narendra Modi or Rahul Gandhi as prime minister in 2014 when elections are due, if not before. And since Modi has the unqualified support of major industrialists who know the art, shall we say, of financing parties, lobbying for MPs, and influencing … Continue reading Prime Minister Narendra Modi of India?

Taking on the Religious Right By GREGORY ELICH Michael Parenti has written a compelling work, whose themes are so relevant for our time: the essentiality of rational thought, the struggle to maintain a secular and tolerant society, and the abuse of religion for reactionary political and obscurant objectives. As Parenti points out, “That ‘old-time religion’ is still very much with us and having a considerable impact on U.S. political life.” And that impact has only grown in recent years. Parenti launches his account with that bedrock of old-time religion, the Bible, examining it for what moral lessons it has to … Continue reading American Baptist Taliban!